Trust Your DJ – Go Easy On Your Playlist

So you have hired a DJ?

Congratulations. Our advice now is to go easy on the amount of songs you ask him or her to play.

Why?

Because, if you have hired a professional DJ you shouldn’t have to provide them with an extensive playlist of music. That is exactly why you are hiring a professional, so that they can do the hard work of working out what song to play and at what time to create the atmosphere you want. Of course, you will still need to let them know the key songs you want (entry song, bridal dance etc), but as far as the music over dinner and dancing you will probably find it much better if you let your professional DJ make the decisions. At best, just give them an idea of the type of music you like and don’t like. So maybe saying something like “We really love acoustic music for the relaxed times and big fans of classic rock for dance time, but we really can’t stand country”. This is more than enough information to give a professional DJ a very good understanding of what you are wanting.

It is more about assessing the atmosphere than creating a playlist. At the event, a professional DJ will assess the atmosphere “on the fly” and NOT have a pre-created playlist. A DJ that pre-creates a playlist is not being very responsive or flexible to what is happening in the moment. This is the same reason you don’t want to bombard your DJ with a list of 30 songs that you have to have played. 30 songs eats up about 2 hours and usually those 30 “must plays” you give the DJ will be 90% dance time songs. This really ties that hands creatively of your professional DJ and you have just unknowingly degraded him/her to being a human jukebox instead of a talented professional that would have played much better music when not told what to do.

You have probably hired a professional to make your wedding cake. You probably had a few tastings and go by the one you liked the taste of the most. You trust them and order the one you liked the most. What you probably aren’t going to do is give them a list of the ingredients you insist they use. It sounds crazy, but when you give a DJ a list of songs they have to play, you are doing the same thing. Similar to tasting the cake, find the DJ that you like the style of and let them know what you are trying to achieve as far as the atmosphere you are trying to create goes. Then sit back and relax and let them do what they do best.

Please, trust your DJ. DJs are not human jukeboxes. We are people who dedicate our lives to understanding various genres of music, key signatures of the music, beats per minute as well as the contexts of each song and aim to blend all these things together to create a wonderful event that is filled with just the right music at just the right time.